A modern air battle is characterized by the following features:
(1) very long ranges between participating aircraft and deployment of missiles having correspondingly long ranges,
(2) very high closing velocities, and
(3) only a partial picture of those participating in battle (i.e. only very rarely does the situation obtain wherein all participants see one another).
These characteristics also result in the fact that a number of aircraft fighting together (either on the same side or against each other) within a predetermined air volume are likely to collide not only because of pilot error but simply on account of what is currently termed "flying risk". There is no system today (based on the proposed structure) which is able to warn a pilot of such collision and to instruct him what remedial steps he should undertake under these critical conditions.
In a modern air battle it is difficult to keep track of vital data which not only complicates the task of making correct strategic maneuvers but also complicates post-battle debriefing. There exist a number of systems which are intended to solve this problem but their solutions are only partial and the systems themselves are extremely expensive.
In particular, the following parameters are not fully provided by prior art systems:
(1) a knowledge of the exact location in space of the aircraft; PA1 (2) a missile which is fired in air combat training is not seen in the sky and actually there is absolutely no indication of the fact that it has been fired; PA1 (3) simulation of a missile launch and of its striking a target; PA1 (4) identification of a target that has been hit by a simulated missile; and PA1 (5) post-battle debriefing for gunnery.
As a result of the above, the pilot himself must judge whether his weapon system operation did indeed strike the target. Any error in the pilot's judgement leads to a change in the battle and can lead to a complete misunderstanding regarding the correct situation of the war.
When dealing with large numbers of participating aircraft, the situation can arise wherein "everybody shoots down everybody else" without knowing who was the first to shoot, and therefore remains in the battle, and who really are disabled.
Existing systems are limited either with regard to a specific ground area or with regard to a specific type of aircraft and clearly are unable to address the problems explained above.
Typically, existing fighter aircraft debriefing tools permit a pilot's performance to be analyzed retroactively and thus provide no real time feedback during flight. There exists, for example, a system which is custom-built for the F16 fighter aircraft which is installed in each participating aircraft and records details of the aircraft's flight pattern. After a flight, the data is removed from the pod in each participating aircraft and fed to a central ground station, whereby the complete flight scenario may be played back and analyzed. However, such a system is not useful for real time flight monitoring, is expensive and may be used only in F16 aircraft for which it is customized.